Weekly Training and a Look at Carlson Gracie Academy in Copa

After class at Carlson Gracie Academy in Copacabana. Photo by bjjpix.com

It’s been another great week here in Rio. New people have arrived and some friends who I have had the pleasure of hanging out and training with over the last couple of months are getting ready to leave. It’s always a bit weird having to say goodbye to friends, but I know that at some point or paths will cross again. The weather has shaped up to be beautiful as we get closer to Rio’s ‘winter’ months. The days are sunny and hot enough to enjoy the beach, and the nights are clear and warm creating the perfect atmosphere for relaxing outdoors at some of our favorite restaurants and beach-side stands. 

On a very cool side note I would like to say congratulations to one of my training partners Leozada Nogueira for winning the Brazilian ADCC trials in the under 77kg weight class. It is a great accomplishment, made more impressive by the fact that he submitted all of his opponents. Leozada will now be competing later this year in China at the ADCC Championships.

Leozada working a choke at the ADCC trials. Photo by bjjpix.com

Week in Training

Mondays wrestling focused mainly on misdirection attacks. With misdirection attack you faint an attack to one side to get your opponent to over commit to the defense and then change angles and hit the actual takedown to the opposite side. The key in this style of takedowns is to sell the fake. You have to make your opponent truly believe that the attack is coming from one angle when in fact it is coming from another. As such the better your opponent is on the feet, the more you have to sell the fake. There are a variety of both high and low level misdirection shots and a person who is good at hitting them can make it look like a thing of beauty.

On Tuesday Jeremy came to hold pads and worked our stand up. He worked with each one of us for two rounds while others did technical sparring. Technical sparring allows you to try new things without the fear of being punished, it also allows you to focus more on defensive techniques such as head movement and checking kicks (both things I need to work on). I have got to say it was nice to have someone holding pads for me that I could fully understand. While with the Brazilians I can get the jist and large concepts they are trying to get across, it was some of the fine details that I could work on with Jeremy. One of the new things I picked up is a nice little drill to get you used to pivoting on your foot when throwing kicks. This is something I rarely do and the drill helped me to put more power into my kicks (though there is still a ton of work to be done).

Defending the armbar. Photo by bjjpix.com

Wednesday Night was the weekly CR academy visit; this weeks visit was at Carlson Gracie Academy in Copacabana. Carlson’s Academy is one of the oldest in Rio, having been in the same location for 40 years. As you walk up the steps to the third floor you come to a large wood door with the Carlson bulldog emblem on it. The Academy, while simple, is filled with history--photos and trophies from over the years are throughout the gym. Class was led by Alan Moraes, a 3rd or 4th degree black belt (I couldn’t tell). Class started with your typical jogging and cals, finishing with arm bar drills from guard and mount positions. The technique he showed was a crazy choke off of rolling through your omoplata (think Clark Gracie in Pan Ams this year). The move was drilled extensively and then the switch was made to live sparring. The live rolling at Carlson’s was extremely competitive, with everyone displaying their gameness in fight. The first roll I had was against a purple belt and we had an intense battle taking us from one side of the mat to the other. At one point he threw on a omoplata, he tried to hit the choke that we had just learned. I defended but as he rolled the omoplata came on strong and I tried to tap, but had to resort verbally taping because it came on that quick. It torqued my arm pretty good and I could feel it in my elbow, but I continued to roll. I rolled against several other high quality grapplers; each with there own specific grappling style, but everyone had the same mentality----attack. Whether it was sweeps, submissions, back takes, or guard passes, these guys were constantly on the offensive. The spirit and ideology of Master Carlson Gracie is alive and well in Copacabana and the academy continues to create and build future champions. 

Thursday morning I worked with the MMA and BJJ guys on wrestling. Reyzinho’s fight is next weekend in Sao Paulo, and he wanted to focus on some defensive work. First I went over and fine tuned some sprawl work and then covered the covered the front quarter nelson. I personally  have had a ton of success with the front 1/4 nelson in BJJ and MMA. A lot of times guys will shoot with their heads down or from a distance. In both instances it is easier to stuff the head and use the 1/4 nelson. Once you stuff the head if you circle around and keep pushing the head under his body it will flip your opponent over allowing you to bypass any guard passing and land in side control. The guys picked up on it and hopefully they will be able to add it to their games. I also ran through various ways of snap & spins go behinds to help build the muscle memory of instantly going behind and taking the back. Thursday afternoon was also Jeremy’s Gringo Nogi, We covered several takedown variations and sequences. When we moved to live rolling I was first going to sit it out because my elbow was killing me, but I had the adrenaline flowing and decided to roll anyways. I felt good, my movement and attacks both flowed hand in hand. On Friday I took it a bit easier, my elbow was bothering me so I just did light mitt work and some technical sparring.

Working to pass. Photo by bjjpix.com

Saturday the weather was beautiful and a group of us hit up the beach and enjoyed the sun. Afterwards we relaxed for a bit and then headed to CR HQ,  had a bbq and watched the UFC on fox. It was a great evening filled with friendly banter and of course lots of food.